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I I^J E B R I E T Y 



V I N I M O R B U S, 



A DISEASE AND TO BE TREATED AS SUCH, 



MODES OF TREATMENT, &C. 



CHARLES R. STEPHENS M. D 



r 




SALEM, M A S S . 

T. J. HLTCHINSON .t SOX, . . . STEAM PPINTERS. 
1877. 



Entered according to Act of Corgress^ in the year iS'J'J, by 

CHARLES R. STEPHENS, of Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, 

in the Clerk's Office of the Librarian of Congress ^ at IVaskington. 

All Rights Reserved. 



I]M EBRIETY 



V I N I MORBUS, 



A DISEASE AND TO BE TREATED AS SUCH 



MODES OF TREATMENT, &C. 



CHARLES R. STEPHENS M. D. 



1 /O VJ. Ur 



SALEM, MASS. 

r. J. HUTCHINSON it SON. STEAM PRINTERS. 

1877. 



Entered according to Act of Corgress, in the if ear 1877, dy 

CHARLES R. STEPHENS, of Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, 

in the Clerk's Ojffice of the Librarian of Congress^ at Washington. 

All Rights Reserved. 



PREFACE 



The genius of the age seeks for truth as evidenced by facts and 
experience; thorough and reliable knowledge of the matters, with and 
upon which we work is the great desideratum of our progress. 

Man in this r.ineteenth century earnestly seeks and eagerly adopts 
that knowledge. Mistakes in principles of action, or in the method of 
their application to the business of life, are readily corrected when 
recognized. 

I have stated my convictions upon a matter of great importance to 
the well-being of the community, in the simplest language I could com- 
mand and with a studied avoidance of technical terms, in order that every 
reader may understand me ; I have explained all purely professional terms 
which were unavoidably used; I have given my ideas as to the applica- 
tion of my theory to the needs of the community, and I refer both my 
theory and its application to the common sense of the people. 

I desire to acknowledge my obligations to John F. Devereux, A.M., 
for valuable assistance in the preparation of this little work. 

C. R. Stephens, M.D. 



INEBRIETY. 



Vini morbus, or Inebriety or addiction to drunkenness is 
a disease /^^J^, (of itself) ; it has an actual existence aside 
from any diseased co7tdition of the body ; this disease often 
exists in persons who are otherwise healthy. The disease 
pre-exists in the body, but the use of alcoholic stimulants . 
will develope it. 

The disease has always existed ; the present generation 
is more seriously affected by it, than any that have pre- 
ceded it ; this is due to the effects of inheritance ; the be- 
lief that man wilfully creates the disease is erroneous ; that 
men are responsible, in a measure, for its development, is 
true. 

The desire for alcoholic stimulants, which is a symptom 
of vini morbus, is almost universal ; the few who do not 
have this desire are exceptions to the general rule ; this 
disease is man's worst enemy. 

Vini morbus, in popular phraseology is " Inebriety," or 
as it would more plainly be rendered " the desire for alco- 
holic drinks." 

Why do men drink } he who can answer the question is 
ready to propose some rational method of doing away with 
a terrible scourge of mankind — drunkenness. 

As the world has advanced in civilization and enlighten- 
ment, it has learned to appreciate and to deplore the ills 
which attend its practical progress in every direction. — 
With the growth of man's mastery over the material world 
the development of new resources, which have contrib- 
uted to his comfort and luxury — has gone on step by step, 
an increase in the possibilities for physical and moral harm, 
which man's perverse ingenuity has made the most of. 



until, today, he is cursed with ills of an extent and magni- 
tude almost equal to his blessings ; chief among these ills 
is the excessive use of alcoholic drinks. 

He who would bring about any good result must know 
well the nature and properties of the material upon which 
he has to work, or he must fail in his attempt. 

He who would combat successfully any ill must under- 
stand its nature, or he takes up arms against it in vain, 
and his utmost exertions can only bring him the uncom^ 
fortable consciousness of defeat. 

I am well assured that Inebriety, viiii morbus or addic- 
tion to drunkenness, has never succumbed to the fierce 
and protracted war made upon it, by some of the best in- 
tellects, and the most hopeful philanthropists of the age, 
only because its true nature has not perceived and,^ 
consequently, the well-meant efforts for its suppression 
have been misdirected. 

Every page of man's recorded history confesses to the 
presence of drunkenness, but not until our more modern 
days has it been denounced as an unpardonable sin, and 
excommunicated with the " anathema maranatha" of repu- 
table society ; nor until our time has war been declared 
against it, and combined and persistent efforts been put 
forth for its suppression. 

Temperance organizations have endeavored to frighten 
man from the use of the various drinks, or have attempted 
to coax from the perverse race of Adam an abandonment 
of their use, as a prevention of their abuse; but threats 
and denunciations have failed, and the gentle persuasions 
of the reformer have fallen on deaf ears. Temperance 
societies have proved themselves unable to grapple success- 
fully with the great evil. 

Woman, to whom the American people pay the largest 
deference in virtue of her sex, — woman, whose influence 
among us is as great as ever it was in the palmiest days of 
chivalry, — woman, whose possibilities with man are, to-day, 



based upon a deeper, truer respect, and supported by a 
sincerer allegiance than ever actuated the Knight Errant 
of old, has brought all her feminine artillery to bear upon 
the strongholds of the liquor traffic ; and although the 
modern "crusaders'' found that every fortress would ca- 
pitulate upon their summons, yet the moment their forces 
left the field, the unabashed enemies drank to the good 
health of their fair foes, in bumpers of special potency. 

The use of liquors is as prevalent as ever, to say the 
least, and all attempts to do away with it have, as yet, re- 
sulted in no appreciable success ; drunkenness still curses 
the land ; and always must until its real nature is under- 
stood, and until the steps taken to suppress it are based 
upon a wise and practical application of that knowledge. 

The immediate provocatives, the causes which call into 
activity the pre-existent disease, are multiform, and thus 
furnish subjects for earnest thought and careful enquiry. 
Medical science has long been aware of many of the pre- 
disposing conditions; some of them are very readily recog- 
nised ; among them we find 

Appetite inherited from intemperate parents ; 
Imperfect development of the vital organs, causing Ian 
guid circulation and feebleness of action of the heart ; 
Excessive sexual indulgence ; 

Loss of nervous vitality, through over-work ; disappoint- 
ments of various sorts, and the reaction from states of 
unusual excitement ; in fact anything that causes perturba- 
tions of the nervous system, whether it be unnatural ex- 
citement, or depression, serves as an exciting cause ; the 
germ of the disease exists i7i the system only waiting favor- 
able co7iditions for its developmejit. 

The unfortunates in whom these causes have roused the 
sleeping malady, find themselves beset by a fierce craving 
for alcoholic stimulants ; but they find, too, that this 
craving grows with what it feeds on, and few have the 
strength of will to deny gratification to this desire for drink, 



the symptom of vini morbus, for a sufficient length of time 
to lull the disease to sleep again. Most of them indulge it> 
and daily furnish fresh food, which means fresh strength, 
to the disease with which they are afflicted. 

The habit of using stimulants fin-ally grows to be a 
necessity, and the chains of the disease are welded more 
and more firmly around the will, which grows weaker and 
weaker to resist the demands of the growing appetite, until 
too often, self-control is entirely lost, and the individual 
needs the restraint of an authority which can enforce the 
abstinence from liquor which the state of health impera- 
tively demands, as the sole means of cure. 

I insist that my position that drunkenness is a disease, 
per se (of itself) is proven by the results of all experience; 
nothing is more assured in all the scope of medical 
knowledge. 

Men are powerfully controlled by many considerations ; 
regard for reputation and social position, carefulness in the 
matter of expenditure, and many other influences, act as 
powerful restraints upon many ; but, the " moderate 
drinker," who plumes himself upon never having been the 
worse for liquor, is a victim, in a less degree, of the self-same 
disease that keeps the more incautious, and less selfish, 
^* habitual drunkard " in the gutter ; both, I repeat, are 
diseased, the sole difference lies in degree. 

We deliberately develope this disease by the unnecessary 
use of intoxicants. 

Of all the physical scourges of mankind this is the most 
insidious, the most fatal to health and happiness, and, at 
the same time, the most difficult to check, or cure. It 
evades the remedial approach of the physician like a thing 
of mist and shadow, and its very victims hug the fatal mal- 
ady to their hearts, and insist that it shall have unimpeded 
sweep over their frames whose nerves it racks, and whose 
powers of resistance it is steadily sapping, hour by hour. 

Alcohol is a necessity in many of the arts as an agent 



in various processes ; it. has its place in man's manipulation 
of the material world about him in furtherance of the ends 
of civilization and practical progress, it must be manufac- 
tured and made use of ; special complications of disease 
demand its use by medical men ; medical emergencies im- 
peratively call for it ; as they do often, for other remedial 
agents of terrible strength whose daily use, 7i?icalled for, 
would equally destroy the physical health and mental bal- 
ance. Stimulants are a necessity in some diseases ; the 
craving for them is a symptom of the presence of a dis- 
ease — of vini morbus. 

Men are born with this disease latent in their systems ; 
many causes serve to excite, and urge it to complete devel- 
opment. 

Men are born with a disease or complication of diseases, 
of which this is an inevitable shadow. 

Since the world began inebriety has claimed a large per- 
centage of the victims of life's ills ; as long as the world 
lasts it always must, unless the nature and workings of 
this curse of humanity are thoroughly sought for and 
revealed, that its effects may be avoided. 

If we would benefit the world by checking the inroads of 
drunkeness upon the happiness, health and prosperity of 
mankind we must seek and find the true answers to these 
vital questions. 

What is this disease .'* 

What are its provocatives, and conditions t 

Can those provocatives and conditions be prevented or 
avoided, and how } 

The application of the information thus gained is the 
only possible, practical temperance reform. 

Inebriety is as truly a disease as any other abnormal 
condition of the body, or its organs ; it differs from other 
diseases in its origin, symptoms and results. 

All disturbances of the nervous forces act as exciting 
causes and general provocatives of the malady, and induce 

2 



10 

the use of the alcoholic stimulants which produce the 
result commonly called drunkenness. 

The innumerable accidents of life which call for the ex- 
penditure of great mental or physical labor, exhaust the 
vital force and disturb the equilibrium of the nervous system; 
all emotional excess, all passional indulgence, carried beyond 
the limits of moderation, produce the same effects, and call 
forth the disease. 

It is true, too, perhaps, that the attempts to repress the 
gratification of man's natural passions, or to deny the ful- 
filment of their proper functions to the various organs of 
the body rouse the disease. 

But mankind rarely sins in the direction of asceticism, 
or extreme self-denial ; yet any departure from the condi- 
tions of perfect health is productive of an abnormal state 
against which nature protests, and to the cure of which she 
bends all her sleepless activities ; she constantly prompts 
the possessor of the organism which is out of gear to cease- 
less effort to remedy the trouble, and man has discovered 
that alcoholic stimulants will supply temporarily, his ner- 
vous wants, and hush for a time, nature's complaint, and 
demand for a remedy. 

Some individuals have inherited an abnormal state of the 
body, and those individuals must be treated as diseased 
from their birth ; and the children of those who have de- 
veloped this disease, must be carefully guarded from the 
excitants calculated to call forth the malady which they 
have probably inherited ; and, whenever it is possible, in all 
cases other remedies should be applied in order to avoid 
the peculiar symptoms that the use of alcohol gives rise to. . 

Others, free from the active manifestations of the disease, 
deliberately call them forth by the habitual use of alcoholic 
drinks. 

Man enjoys and seeks the mental excitation that is the 
immediate effect of alcohol ; the sensations resultnig from 
increased activity of the mind, and especially of theimagina- 



II 

tion, are pleasurable to all, and have exceedingly great 
attractions for many. At first stimulants are used to pro- 
duce this mental exaltation and imaginative fervor ; the re- 
action inevitably follows after the effects of the liquor have 
passed away : the nervous force is insufficient for physical 
needs ; the brain is dull and inactive, then comes the effort 
to repair the loss of vigor and mental power b}-^ renewed 
doses of stimulant; the economy of body and brain is dis- 
turbed ; the disease is awakened ; the moderate use of 
drink to supply the nervous want makes the " moderate 
drinker " ; the reckless seeker for its excitement and he 
becomics the " habitual drunkard." 

Nature if left to herself can accomplish the cure of many 
of the diseases of men, especially in their first manifesta- 
tions ; and this disease, in the* extent to which the moderate 
drinker is afflicted by it, can be cured by nature in a short 
time, and without much suffering on the part of the patient ; 
but where the reckless one has induced an advanced stage 
of the disease, the sufferer can not resist the demands of 
his cravings, and is a hopeless slave to an unconquerable 
appetite, the consequences and symptom o vi7ii morbiLs in 
an aggravated form. 

Such are the conditions in general, which excite this 
disease. The truth of the matter can be briefly stated in 
this way, all nervous waste must be supplied in some way ; 
nature's demands in this respect are imperative ; alcohol 
substitutes for the natural nervous energy, a feverish ex- 
citement which further weakens the impaired organs, and 
finally creates a necessity for its own continued use to 
prevent total collapse of functional power — excites a disease 
in the attempt to renew exhausted powers, for which rest 
and generous food would in most cases, have proved an all 
sufficient prescription. 

To avoid the appearance of inconsistency, and in order 
that a perfectly clear understanding of the innumerable 
causes which produce or rather admit of the development 



12 

of vini morbus or inebriety may be had by the reader, it 
will be well to explain in some detail. 

' Every effect must have a cause, there is no such thing 
as " spontaneous generation," 

No educated medical man doubts the existence of an 
entity which is the cause of yellow fever, small pox, cholera, 
measles, whooping cough, etc.; yet, this entity, the 
'* materia morbi " has not been discovered ; we know that 
it exists from its effects, and this existence is unquestion- 
able, and forms part of the firmest conviction of all earnest 
enquirers and thorough investigation of medical facts. 

All through nature there is a continuous, never ceasing, 
struggle for existence wherever circumstance and condi- 
tions make it possible; but sometimes a germ seizes a foot- 
hold, and forces its way to a full developement. 

The desire for alcohol is a disease ; that the desire is a 
morbid one is self-evident, and is shown by its effects upon 
the organism. 

There is something in the constitution of man which 
craves stimulants ; alcohol meets this craving and feeds the 
morbid principle and thereby developes it. 

There is a continual struggle by man's higher nature to 
vanquish this terrible enemy. The morbid principle which 
creates cholera is an animated something, vegetable or 
animal, and in man's body it meets with the requisites for 
its development : so it is with the germ from which vini 
inorbics is developed. 

The germ of this disease exists ; but, an exciting cause 
and favorable conditions are needful that it may arrive at 
maturity. 

The causes are many; it is well nigh impossible to enu- 
merate them all — the conditions are so various, and so dif- 
ficult of description. 

It cannot be denied that vini inorbvs is transmitted from 
parent to child ; this could not be from the nature of 
things, were it not an actual, existent disease, independent 



13 

of any siiperinduction by the use of alcoholic stimulants, 
on the part of the unfortunate progeny. 

Many authors have advanced theories and published 
opinions upon the subject of drunkenness and its causes, 
which give rise to the belief that the desire for stimulating 
drinks is simply a craving of the system for some needed 
supply that the food cannot furnish. This is evidently 
erroneous ; the children of intemperate parents often pos- 
sess a complete and perfect, physical development ; yet 
these seldom escape the disease to which the parents were 
subject. This fact has been often noticed, and in times 
long since past, Plutarch said *' one drunkard begets 
another" and Aristotle has put on record the fact, that 
" drunken women bring forth children like unto themselves." 

Modern observers recognise fully the baneful effects of 
the use of alcoholic stimulants, but fail to note the origin 
of the appetite for them ; but when the vini morbus has 
reached a high point of development they do not hesitate 
to admit the truth, and then call it *' disease " ; in its incip- 
ient stage they seem to consider the desire for stimulants 
as simply an exhibition of an abnormal appetite. 

When fiercely hungry, the hungry man may eat too 
much at one time, but he will not repeat the mistake delib- 
erately, and at least feels none of that irresistible compul- 
sion to excess which is the distinguishing peculiarity of the 
appetite for drink, which removes it from the control of 
volition or will, and gives it the unmistakable characteristic 
of disease. 

A thorough and exhaustive explanation of the process of 
. the development of vini morbiLS from the first exhibition of 
it to its mature development, involves an almost incredible 
amount of labor. 

It is easy to observe and record effects, and make no 
attempt to detect, trace out, and explain the cause of them ; 
but to determine and to clearly state, and prove the 
real origin of a disease so generally misunderstood, in re- 



14 

gard to which theories are so loose, and in connexion with 
which prejudices, of opposite natures, are so bitter and 
wide spread, is a task of no small magnitude. 

When this disease has reached a certain stage of devel- 
opment in any individual, every man of common sense 
recognizes the trouble as a disease, and so thinks, and 
speaks of it ; every scientist and medical man pronounces 
it such, and neither consideft it in any other light; nor 
does either of these two classes hold the unfortunate indi- 
vidual any more responsible than they would if he had in- 
herited some syphilitic infection, or mental eccentricity, 
which, under favorable circumstances, would be developed 
into insanity. They do not hesitate to call it disease. 

The moderate and occasional drinkers are bitterly preju- 
diced against the habitual drunkard, and denounce his 
''weakness" and " want of self-control"; for they must 
accuse him to defend their own habits ; and the reason for 
their perhaps unconscious injustice is sufficiently evident. 
But, although this is intended for a scientific exposition of 
drunkenness, its nature an dcauses, and would carefully 
avoid all that is foreign to the realm of scientific truth, I 
must, as a duty, state in the most emphatic terms that the 
difference between the moderate drinker and the confirmed 
drunkard is one of degree, and not of kind. In the one the 
germ of the disease has reached maturity, and the dis- 
ease has full control of the body and mind ; in the other it 
is in process of development. 

A fellow feeling should teach the "moderates" charity ; 
for they are themselves in danger of finding the disease 
escaped beyond their control ; and. Heaven knows, that the 
most pitiable of God's creatures is the man who' is a victim 
to the tormenting craving for alcoholic stimulants, con-[ 
scious of his inability to resist it, and who supposes himself I 
to have called into being — created the demon that haunts 
him. 

It is the belief of the author, that a large majority of 



15 

those born in this age of the world have inherited veni 
morbus. 

Some few individuals escape the disease entirely ; that 
is, they not only do not have the taste or desire for alco- 
holic stimulants, but they even have a disgust for them, 
which seems to be a constitutional repugnance caused by 
some peculiarity of the physical system, forming unfavora- 
ble conditions for the existence and development of the 
germ. 

It is even true that, sometimes, the offspring of drunken 
parents experience a distaste for stimulants ; these cases, 
however, are very rare, and form exceptions to the rule, for 
which it is not easy to account ; yet the same fact may be 
seen in the children of syphilitic parents ; it being the rule 
that the offspring will be infected, yet some will escape the 
infection, and live undisturbed by the consequences of the 
sins or misfortunes of their parents. 

Passing by the exceptions, and treating of the general 
rule, I proceed to give a brief description of the cause of 
the disease. 

This disease does not manifest itself, generally, until the 
age of puberty, and often, not until later in life. Yet 
where the germ has a foothold in the system, if the indi- 
vidual be allowed to act without restraint, the nervous dis- 
turbances co-existing with the change from bo3'hood to 
manhood and the development of the organs of sex, make 
a favorable condition for the progress of the disease and 
the slightest encouragement on the part of the individual 
is sure to bring it out. 

Should restraint, or want of opportunity, prevent indul- 
gence and the germ be allowed to remain quiescent in the 
system — where the disease has been inherited from parents 
afflicted with it in its most advanced stage — the individual 
will experience a strange desire for something which the 
food can not afford. The craving of the germ for the nu- 
trition and supplies through which it may grow to the fully 



i6 

developed disease produces restlessness, irritability of 
temper, lassitude, depression of spirits, etc. etc. At this 
point, no doubt can exist that, with a proper course of 
treatment, which should be principally hygienic, the disease 
might be throttled in its infancy. 

Ignorance of the true nature of the difficulty, on the part 
of most of mankind, renders this summary disposal of the 
disease well nigh impossible. The victim of the malady 
yields to the governing impulse of his nature, and soon 
passes irretrievably under the complete control of the appe- 
tite which is to desi"roy the body, and rob him of health, 
wealth and respectability. His fellow-men look on with a 
curiously mixed expression of pity and contempt. They 
will ridicule his weakness, and deride the vice of which 
they assert he is guilty ; yet they make no practical effort 
for his redemption, or salvation. 

The want of sympathy for the unfortunate sufferer — this 
harsh, and bitterly false, criticism of the acts of one who 
cannot be held responsible for them, on the part of pro- 
fessed christians — this sharp example of " man's inhumanity 
to man" shocks the thoughtful man who knows the misera- 
ble falsehood of the charge, and feels the utter helplessness 
of the struggling victim of an irresistable propensity. As 
well may we hold the patient suffering from high fever re- 
sponsible for the torments of thirst which well nigh drive 
him mad — as well hold the lunatic responsible for the wild 
incoherence of his insane imaginings — as well hold respon- 
sible the sufferer from any other disease for the peculiar 
symptoms which the disease manifests ! 

These social and moral critics, in their ignorance and 
uncharitableness, like the Pharisee of Holy writ " thank 
God that they are not -as other men " forgetting that the 
moral scales of the Almighty alone are impartially true, and 
that the relative standing of individuals at the judgment 
will be determined by a strict general average ; and it is 
apt to be the case that the victims of intemperance, barring 



17 

this one fact, are among the noblest of men, though impo- 
tent againt this as against any other disease with wliich 
humanity is afflicted. 

The time is fast approaching when this false verdict will 
be reversed, and such help as man can tender to his fellow 
against disease will supplant this contemptuous bitterness 
of derision and misconception. 

Not very long ago, all " the ills that flesh is heir to " 
were attributed to the direct, personal intervention of Prov- 
idence and were looked upon as special visitations for par- 
ticular sins of indiA'iduals. So extensive was the effect of 
this superstitious absurdity that it actually retarded the 
progress of medical science, and when Jenner discovered 
and published to a wondering world his grand discovery of 
vaccination as a defense against the attacks of small pox — 
a discovery so pregnant with immeasurable good to all 
mankind, he was looked upon as a wild empiric and a flou- 
ter of Providence. 

All men cannot be poets, philosophers or statesmen ; 
yet all are supposed to possess a moral nature sufficiently 
developed to instruct them in right and wrong, and are 
popularly supposed to have the power to choose the right. 
Hence it is argued that every man has the power to resist 
the temptation to drink, " if he only chooses so to do." 

That this belief is entirely erroneous is evident from the 
facts set forth in the preceding pages, I certainly shall 
not be at a loss to convince any unprejudiced mind of the 
fact that the individual is incapable of resisting his craving 
for alcoholic stimulants, when " through habit," to use a 
very common expression, he has established the disease. 
Many confirmed drunkards possess a moral nature of a 
high tone, discover noble and geuCTous impulses, and en- 
tertain a great horror and disgust for their unconquerable 
craving for drink. Such an unfortunate is an example by 
which I propose to illustrate the course of this all consu- 
ming malady, viui morbus. 
3 



1 8 

A noble boy, generous, frank and fearless, looking for- 
ward to life's triumphs, proud of his conscious power to 
compass them, and earnest to put forth the efforts which he 
knows are called for, if he would realize his bright antici- 
pations and splendid possibilities, has reached the age of 
puberty ; and, with the waking to life of his passional in- 
stincts, has found all his preconceived ideas of possible 
pleasures and happiness overthrown, and a new interpreta- 
tion of this life's meaning and its enjoyments revealed to 
him as by the magic of an enchanter's wand. As these new 
instincts arise and compel recognition, a purely physical 
change takes place within his frame, and, with other new 
desires, the germ of vini morbus stirs itself and seeks sus- 
tenance and growth. 

An undefinable want of something forces itself upon his 
attention ; be soon finds this want is met by the use of 
alcoholic drinks. He is satisfied, for the time, and con- 
gratulates himself that his knowledge of the means for 
enjoyment and happiness is completed and thoroughly 
rounded out by this acquisition of the experience of the 
" toning" qualities of intoxicating drinks. The buoyancy 
of his youth is made yet more buoyant by their effects ; 
the brightness of his anticipations rendered yet more bright 
by their influence, his strength made stronger, and his 
ultimate success in the world painted in yet more glowing 
colors upon his imagination through indulgence in them. 
Under cover of the general disturbance of his whole sys- 
tem which takes place at this time of life, the insidious 
disease has put in its claim upon him, and deluding him by 
the specious gilding which it adds to the confident 
strength, and brilliant promise of his young days, steals 
upon him all unconscious of its approach and utterly heed- 
less of its nature, until the glamour of its delusion finds a 
place in his belief as the discovery of a pleasant and valu- 
able truth. He thoughtlessly yields to the growing impulse, 
and, day by day, complies with the increasing demand for 



19 

fresh aliment. Stronger and stronger grows the craving 
for the excitation of the poison ; and more and more fre- 
quent, as the disease is more and more developed — less and 
less, hour by hour, grows the strength of will needed to 
resist this enemy of comfort and happiness which his unsus- 
pecting innocence has admitted to the possession of a 
foot-hold in every part of his frame, body, brains and blood. 
He doubts for a long time if the suspicion of its poisonous 
nature which, at times, forces itself upon him is not a mis- 
take ; he argues that it really strengthens him, in mind and 
body, and tries desperately to see in it a friend and helper. 
Soon the germ has developed to the matured disease, and 
established a demand for fresh indulgence to correct the 
physical suffering and to relieve the mental incapacity 
which the use of stimulants has brought about. They 
have unnaturally excited body and mind ; they must again 
be resorted to in order to make the inevitable reaction from 
that excitement endurable. At last the sufferer wakes to 
a dreadful realization of his danger and helplessness ; his 
intelligence, and daily experience reveal to him the fact 
that his indulgence has almost made of him a drunkard ; 
but he still believes that he can retrieve himself from the 
control of this appetite, which threatens to become all ab- 
sorbing, and he makes honest and noble resolves to aban- 
don the use of alcoholic stimulants, " to-morrow!' But that 
to-morrow never comes ; his weakened intellect pleases it- 
self, for a while, with a fine picture of the determined re- 
bellion against his insatiable tyrant which is to be 
inaugurated at some indefinite point of the immediate 
future, and meanwhile in the flush of his anticipated vic- 
tory he welds yet more firmly the chains which bind his 
will, and feeds to a greater strength the enemy upon which 
he intends to declare war, — intends, but never does. That 
curious physiological effect which is characteristic of the 
use of alcohol, dethronement of the intellect — impairment 
of the reasoning powers — now supervenes, and this once 



20 

proud specimen of mental strength and physical health, 
has become the sport of a fearful disease — an automaton, 
thinking, moving, acting, as the spring of all his activities 
shall dictate — the slave of vini morbus. The desire for 
the indulgence in drink, has reached such a height that he 
has lost all power to control it, and his sole refuge from its 
demands is in a lunatic asylum, or through delirium tre- 
mens, that darkest of all the shadows that loom over the 
valley of death, he finds respite in the grave. 

During the whole course of the disease, the man's moral 
and physical nature, struggles more or less determinedly 
against it ; he promises himself that each indulgence shall 
be the last, and then — treats the resolution. 

How many men make an honest resolve every twenty- 
four hours — three hundred and sixty -five times a year — that 
they will drink no more, yet how few ever carry this resolu- 
tion into effect ! and why do they not take this step, on 
the taking of which they feel that their safety depends } 
They do not, simply because they cannot. 
The individual is the slave of a terrible disease which 
his intelligence tells him is destroying him : conscience 
protests against the commission of suicide , experience 
daily repeated in the lives of others, warns him that he is 
rushing on to a most fearful death prefaced by a miserable 
existence of horrible suffering, embittered by the reproaches 
and contempt of all the world, yet, he cannot arrest his un- 
willing progress to such an end ; still some of his fellows, 
who are witnesses of his vain struggles to regain a lost 
manhood, and auditors of his expressions of awful despair 
at his powerlesness, dare to deny that he is suffering from 
disease, and refuse to pity where they will not help. 

As the disease gains ground from day to day, disorder 
of the vital organs follows, often resulting in organic 
disease. 

The craving for the stimulant increases ; the disordered 
organs emphasize the demand with one of their own, to 



21 

supply a want of power to discharge their functions, which 
has been generated by the use of the alcohol. 

These organic disorders, and consequent weaknesses, 
are generally the cause of death to the moderate, constant 
drinker, 

Vml morbus oftens results in death through delirmm 
tremens, one of the manifestations of its effects. 

Delirium tremens is not a disease, /^r 5^, but is a result 
ot the antagonism and conflict which continually goes on 
between vini morbus and the organism in which it is de- 
veloped ; more will be said on this subject under the head 
of delirium tremens. 

The reader now understands that the germ, existing at 
birth, asserts its place in the body, and demands nourish- 
ment and support, and that alcoholic drinks furnish that 
needed sustenance, and that alcoholic drinks taken into the 
system call into activity, and feed to maturity the germ of 
vini mof bus. The disease progresses steadily and surely, 
until it has gained the strength which gives it the mastery 
over body and mind, and the sufferers are helpless to re- 
sist it. At the begining of the disease it might have been 
successfully combated, and the individuals not only been 
saved from its fatal results, but, also, from the diseases 
which are concomitant with or induced by vini morbus. 

Can nothing be done } 

Will not science assert here her holy mission to diminish 
the suffering and mortality induced by it among the sons 
of men, as science has already done in small pox and yel- 
low fever — or is vini morbus to continue its work of de- 
struction until man becomes more and more degenerate 
through its agency and is in danger of forfeiting his proud 
pre-eminence as the head of all created things .'* 

Vini morbus, like the diseases originating from malarial 
poisons, manifests itself in many ways. 

No two physical constitutions are alike in all respects, 
and this infinite variety gives rise to a corresponding dif- 



22 

ference in the symptoms and consequences of the disease 
in different individuals. 

A sufficiently accurate classification of those who use, 
and suffer from the use of intoxicating drinks may be 
reached by dividing them into four classes as follows : 

1st, the constant drinker; 2d, the moderate drinker; 
3d, the occasional drinker ; 4th, the periodical drunkard. 

The constant drinker is the man who consumes a certain 
quantity of alcohol every day ; he is never content or sat- 
isfied until he has taken his " ration " ; he is never drunk, 
but he is never free from the influence of liquor; he walks 
his daily round of duty, attending to his business with no 
apparent disturbance of mind or body ; he retains the re- 
spect and esteem of his friends and associates ; no one 
suspects that he is a victim to vini morbus, until the disease 
has reached such a high point of development as to effect 
his brains, or to disturb the functions of the other organs 
of his body. He does not often die of vini morbus itself, 
but falls a victim to some one of the diseases which are 
attendant upon vini morbus, generated by the use of alco- 
holic stmiulants. He oftens dies what is called " a natural 
death," and perhaps, no one but his physician knows the 
cause, - 

The moderate drinker only differs from the constant 
drinker, in the fact that he does not drink as often, or as 
much ; the progress of the disease in him is proportionally 
slow, and may never reach as serious a point of develop- 
ment ; yet, usually the moderate drinker leaves the world 
soonerlthan he otherwise would, hurried off the stage by 
some one of the many physical ailments to which his vini 
morbus has given aid and countenance. 

The occasional drinker pursues no definite course ; each 
case varies with the individual; such an one may be said 
to drink only when the "paroxysm" comes on; for a 
great part of the time he feels no craving for the stimulant, 
or uneasiness in consequence of abstaining from its use ; 



23 

but, at times, the disease from which he is never exempt, 
is stirred to unusual activity by some exciting cause, and 
its demands are satisfied, and for a longer or shorter period, 
cease; pleasant companionships and the excitement of so- 
cial pleasures, seem to be conditions favorable to calling 
forth his desire for alcoholic drinks; the smell of liquors and 
wines is, apparently, sufficient to cause this excitation of 
his usually dormant infirmity ; there would appear to be'\ 
an analogy between 7'/;2/?/2^r^?^i", in the case of the occa-j 
sional drinker, and man's sexual appetite. Many men wilff 
pursue their regular course of life, and be occupied with| 
their business, to the utter exclusion of any thoughts of! 
sexual indulgence ; but should they see any individual of 
the opposite sex, whose beauty of form is remarkable, their 
passion is at once excited to a degree which makes its 
gratification seem to them an imperative necessity. In 
both cases the desire exists in the system ; in both circum- 
stances and favorable conditions rouse it to activity 

The most un fortunate of all the victims of vini morSusjs 
he who is knownto medical men as the " periodical drunk- 
ard." "In him the disease finds full development, and in 
him the exhibition of its terrible consequences, and power 
for harm, shocks the civilized world, and appeals to man's 
profoundest pity, while it excites feelings of disgust and 
dismay. 

He, from the very nature of things, attracts the attention 
and is the object of the closest study of the physician ; he 
is the subject of prayer in the churches, and at the home 
altar; he is the object for whose " reformation " ali the 
influence of temperance organizations is exerted ; he it is 
in whose degradation, infatuation, and hclplcsncbs against 
the tyranical appetite of which he is the bond slave, the 
world recognizes the true nature of the disease sharply 
defined in all its fearful characteristics. 

For him, and his release from the affliction which de- 
stroys him, prayers to the Almighty rise, day and night, in 



24 

a ceaseless stream of supplicating agony from the tremb- 
ling lips of gray-haired parents, whose fondest hopes have 
been changed to bitter sorrow, whose prideful anticipations 
have culminated in disgrace and misery: from heart-broken 
wives and trembling children, crowding and shivering 
around the cold hearth-stone of the once happy home. 

With the periodical drunkard there are constantly, and 
generally regularly recurring paroxysms of the disease, 
which can only be stilled by the unlimited use of stimulants. 
We find this characteristic of periodicity in many of the 
diseases resulting from malarial poisons. In " fever and 
ague " the disease will recur at regular intervals, more or 
less frequent, in accordance with the constitutional pecu- 
liarities of the patient. In some the attacks occur as often 
as once every twenty-four hours ; in others at intervals of 
seven days — and this periodical recurrence marks the 
mature stage of the disease vini morbus. 

This periodical attack of drunkenness compels recog- 
nition from every intelligent and thoughtful man as a dis- 
ease. Its every characteristic is such as stamps its true 
nature beyond the shadow of a doubt — witness the impera- 
tive nature of its demands, the utter inability of the sufferer 
to bear his pains, and his inevitable and unavoidable appli- 
cation to what he knows will temporarily relieve them ; 
witness the horror and disgust of him who is so irresistibly 
impelled to resort to the remedies ; witness the impotent 
struggles of the victim to escape from the dire necessit}^ 
Consider the character of the interests and obligations, 
which are powerless to withold him — the highest and most 
sacred known to humanity. Try and conceive of the force 
of an impulse which the prayers and tears of parents, wife 
and children can not restrain, and then, laugh, if you can, 
at the comic portrayal of such unspeakable affliction and 
misery, by a Gough, or Billy Ross, who enrapture a gaping 
crowd by their imitations of the phrenzied incoherence, 
the stammering imbecility, and the bodily paralysis of the 



25 

victim of the most deadly and incurable ill known to the 
experience of mortal man ! 

It is well for the pockets "bf these reformatory frauds to 
be able to draw laughing crowds to their nightly perform- 
ances and equally creditable to their shrewdness and tact. 
It is creditable too, to their powers of giving dramatic in- 
terest to their harangues. But, what can the intelligent 
observer of the evils which they pretend to aim to correct, 
what can the thoughtful, christian spectator of the torments 
and misery they hold up to ridicule think of their moral 
sense, or practical philanthopy ^ What a shock would be 
felt by any decent audience to whom a lecturer should tra- 
vestie the death throes of the small pox patient, the spasms 
of the sufferer from tetanus, cholera, or y ellow fever .'' 
Would not the hiss of outraged humanity, and the frown of 
christian charity greet the attempt, and compel to silence 
him who should dare so to affront m.an's appreciation of the 
misery of his fellow man, and his boundless pity for una- 
voidable suffering and woe ? 

So terrible are the effects of this disease that they throw 
around it all the awful dignity of the greatest and most 
irretrievable misfortune that can overtake any individual 
of our race. Its terrible import to mankind compels from 
every earnest well-wisher to humanity a most scrutinizing 
examination of its real nature and a most thorough com- 
parison of the facts of its progress and culmination in dif- 
ferent individuals, as well as a most careful consideration 
of the possible practical defense against its attacks. 

To treat it with levity, or to ridicule its nature, its phases, 
or its results, is as though one should illustrate to an audi- 
ence, with a Jumping Jack, .the conJ:ortions and agonies of 
the wretch who dies by the halter. 

Such an illustration would meet universal execration ; 
yet such in reality, less only in degree, are the elocutionary 
buffooneries of a Gough, or a Billy Ross in their temper- 
ance entertainments. 
4 



26 

The sole remedy lies in a trustworthy knowledge of the 
actual nature of the disease and in practical measures based 
upon that knowledge; all else will be vain. 

Specious theories may be invented, eloquent sophistries 
may be delivered to applauding audiences, but the reform- 
atory attempts, built upon such unstable foundations must, 
and will, and do, fail in an almost incredibly short time — 
were we to judge of their probable permanence from the 
intensity of the interest which such theories awaken and 
the amouQt of enthusiasm which such sophistical eloquence 
calls forth. 

Where are the thousands who, from time to time, enroll 
themselves under the banners of the temperance societies, 
as the result of such appeals — back in their chains — fallen 
to a yet lower depth of degradation — sunk in a yet more 
hopeless slough of despond, because of the failure of the 
means which were to save them from inebriety, and to 
reinstate them in their self-respect and the regard and 
esteem of their relatives and friends. This result was in- 
evitable, for they were misled by false theories to depend 
upon worthless means of redemption; and fell again before 
the power of the destroyer, robbed, by their experience, of 
that last thing to desert humanity in its misfortunes — hope. 
They did not know the nature of their malady, consequently 
they failed to apply the needed remedy. 

Periodical vini morbus may be said to result invariably/ 
in some form of lunacy, unless the subject of it be carrie4 
off by some affection induced by the use of alcoholic stinv 
ulants. The disease gains fresh strength and power witn 
each indulgence of the inebriate, and he becomes less abl^ 
to withstand the attacks which are more frequent in their/ 
recurrence, because of the injury done to the vital organs^ 
Finally the sufferer decides that resistance is useless, and 
gives himself up for lost, foregoing further effort for relief. 
He sometimes finds a refuge in a "drunkard's home" 
through the charity of those who have watched his strug- 
gles, seen his defeat, and pitied his wretched fate. 



27 

Among the noblest institutions that the philanthropy of 
the age has founded are these retreats, where the miserable 
outcast can hide from the reproaches of relatives and the 
scorn of the world — and where he finds the warm reception 
accorded by nobte hearts — the careful oversight which he 
needs so sadly, and the only course of treatment which can 
work his cure. If the disease has not advanced too far, 
he may here be taught how to get the better of it ; and, if 
it has not wholly ruined his mind and body, he may some- 
time return to the world to fill the position of a useful 
member of society. Is disease a sin? if not what shall 
excuse the coldness, and bitterly expressed contempt of 
those good people who can see in the drunkard nothing to 
help or pity, but everything to censure and condemn. 

" Weakness " is a component of the character of every 
man born of woman ; and if " weakness " is to deny to him 
who suffers from it earthly help and eternal salvation. Heaven 
will not be over populated from this world, and the domin- 
ions of his Satanic Majesty will be crowded; but the 
"weakness " of drunkenness will not send the largest quota 
to that populous realm. 

When will the world learn that it is useless to preach 
morality as a cure for a physical disease .'* 

Vint morbus often results in a species of mania, in this 
last described instance of the periodical drunkard. Dr. 
Hutcheson in the report of the Glasgow Lunatic Asylum 
(pp. 39-44), gives the f-ollowing confirmation of my position. 
I quote him at length : — 

" Gino-mania!' — " This form of mania," he observes, 
" is quite different from drunkenness, which, however may 
lead to it." 

"The diagnostic mark of the disease being the irresisti- 
ble propensity to swallow stimulants in enormous doses, 
whenever, wherever and however they can be procured. 
There are individuals who at the festive board invariably 
become excited, if not intoxicated, but who are otherwise 



28 

habitually sober, and in the course of the year drink much 
less than others who never appear to be under the influence 
of stimulants. Others indulge in their potations in a reg- 
ular manner, and dail}) consume a larger quantity of liquor 
than is consistent v/ith good health or sobriety. All these, 
however, possess self-control, and can at any time refrain 
from stimulants; but those affected with the disease can 
not do so, however convinced they may be of the impropri- 
ety of yielding to their propensity, or however desirous 
they may be to subdue it. I repeat, that the disease does 
not consist in the mere habit cf becoming intoxicated, but 
in the irresistable impulse which drives the unhappy slave 
of appetite to do that which he knows to be pernicious and 
wrong, and which in the interval of his paroxysms, he views 
with loathing and disgust. He derives no pleasure from 
taste, for he gulps down the liquor, of whatever kind it may 
be ; or from society, for he generally avoids society ; but 
he only derives a temporary satisfaction from the gratifica- 
tion of his insane impulse, or rather from freeing himself 
from the overwhelming misery which the non-gratification 
of his impulse inflicts upon him. The disease appears in 
three forms — the acute, the periodic, and the chronic." 

" The acicte is the rarest of the three. I have seen it 
occur from haemorrhage in the puerperal state, in recovery 
from fevers, from excessive venereal indulgence, and in 
some forms of dyspepsia. When it proceeds from any of 
the first three causes, it is easily cured by restoring the 
health of the patient. When it arises from the fourth cause 
mentioned, it is not so easily removed, and is very apt to 
assume the chronic form. 

'*ThQ periodic or paroxysmal form is much more frequent 
than the acute. This is often observed in individuals who 
have suffered from injuries of the head, females during 
pregnancy, at the catamenial periods, on the approach of 
the critical period and afterwards, and in men whose brains 
are overworked. When it occurs from injuries of the head. 



29 

the case is hopeless. In the other instances it may be 
cured. In some cases, it occurs whenever the individual 
partakes of stimulants. In these, total abstinence is the 
only remedy. Like the form about to be mentioned, it is 
frequently hereditary — being derived from a parent pre- 
disposed to insanity, or addicted to intemperance. In such 
cases the probability of cure is very small. The individ- 
ual thus affected abstains for weeks or months from all 
stimulants, and frequently loathes them for the same period. 
But by degrees he becomes uneasy, listless, and depressed, 
feels incapable of application, and restless, and at last 
begins to drink until he is intoxicated. He awakes from a 
restless sleep, seeks again a repetition of the intoxicating 
dose, and continues the same course for a week or longer. 
Then a stage of apathy and depression follows, during 
which he feels a loathing for stimulants, is the prey of re- 
morse, and regrets bitterly his yielding to his malady. 
This is followed by fresh vigor, diligent application to busi- 
ness, and a determined resolution never again to give way. 
But, alas ! sooner or later the paroxysm recurs, and the 
same scene is re-enacted, till ultimately, unless the disease 
be checked, he falls a victim to the physical effects of in- 
temperance — becomes maniacal, or imbecile, or affected 
with the form of the disease next to be mentioned." 

"Of all the forms of oino-maniay the most common is the 
chronic. The causes of this are injuries of the head, dis- 
eases of the heart, hereditary predisposition, and intemper- 
ance. This is by far the most incurable form of the malady. 
The patient is incessantly under the most overwhelmning 
desire for stimulants. He will disregard every impediment, 
sacrifice comfort and reputation, withstand the claims of 
affection, consign his family to misery and disgrace, and 
deny himself the common necessaries of life, to gratify his 
insane propensity. In the morning morose and fretful, 
disgusted with himself, and dissatisfied with all around him, 
weak and tremulous, incapable of any exertion either of 



30 

mind or body, his first feeling is a desire for stimulants, 
with every fresh dose of which he recovers a certain degree 
of vigor, both of body and mind, till he feels comparatively 
comfortable. A few hours pass without the craving being; 
so strong ; but it soon returns, and the patient drinks till 
intoxication is produced. Then succeed the restless sleep, 
the suffering, the comparative tranquility, the excitement, 
and the state of insensibility ; and unless absolutely se- 
cluded from all means of gratifying the propensity, the 
patient continues the same course till he dies, or becomes 
imbecile. This is that fearful state protrayed by Charles 
Lamb, in which reason revisits the mind only during the 
transient period of incipient intoxication." 

" It must be remarked, that in all these forms of the dis- 
ease the patient is perfectly incapable of self-control ; that 
he is impelled by an irresistible impulse to gratify his pro- 
pensity and that while the paroxysm is on him he is regard- 
less of his health, his life, and all that can make life dear 
to him; that he is prone to dissipate his property, and 
easily becomes the prey of the designing ; and that in many 
cases he exhibits a propensity to commit homicide or sui- 
cide. He is thus dangerous to himself and others ; and 
however responsible he may have been for bringing the 
disease on himself, his responsibility ceases as soon as he 
comes under the influence of the malady. The disease, 
however, may not be brought on by the act of the individ- 
ual, and then it is clear at once, that neither directly nor 
indirectly can he be deemed responsible. But suppose that 
it were the result of his previous conduct, I repeat that 
however culpable he may have been for that, he is not a 
responsible being while afflicted with the malady ; for I 
can see no distinction between this form of the disease, and 
any other which has been induced by the habits or acts of 
the individual." 

*' The only chance of cure or alleviation is from attention 
tb the health, and abstinence from intoxicating liquors. 



I Neither can be secured so long as the patient is at large ;, 
land no amendment can be depended on, unless he has 
jundergone a long course of discipline and probation. Con- 
sidering, then, that the individual is irresponsible and dan- 
gerous to himself and others — that, if left uncontrolled, he 
will ruin his family — and that his disease can be treated 
only in an asylurrj, it is not only merciful to him and his 
relatives, but necessary for the security of the public, that 
he be deprived of the liberty which he abuses and perverts, 
and that he should be prevented from committing crimes 
instead of being punished, or, I should rather say, being 
the object of vindictive infliction after he has perpetrated 
them. So convinced are some affected with the periodical 
form of the disease, of the necessity of being controlled, 
that when the first symptoms of their paroxysm are felt, 
they voluntarily enter an asylum, and remain until the 
attack has passed off. These, however, are men of stronger 
minds, though, with all their strength, incapable of resist- 
ing the disease ; and, surely, what they feel to be their only 
refuge to avoid this impending evil, it can not be unjust or 
harsh to force on others whose minds are more impaired. 
Such cases soon become rational in an asylum ; and when 
the individual can so far control himself as voluntarily to 
surrender his liberty on the first premonitory symptoms of 
the malady presenting themselves, he may be dismissed 
after a shorter probation. It is otherwise with those who 
have not that self-control, or who fancy that they are un- 
justly interfered with when checked in their career. They 
require a much longer probation, which should be increased 
at each return of their malady." 

" Of the chronic form, I have only seen one case com- 
pletely cured, and that after a seclusion of two years' dura- 
tion. In general, it is not cured ; and no sooner is the 
patient liberated, than he manifests all the symptoms of his 
disease. Paradoxical though the statement may appear to 
be, such individuals are sane only when confined in an 
Asylum." 



32 

The above evidence that vini morbus is produced by other 
causes than the habit of using alcohoHc stimulants is indis- 
putable, and shows conclusively the existence of a morbid 
principle — a disease — of which the drunkard's craving is 
but a symptom. 

Delirmm tremens is an exhibition of the effects of this 
disease: the pathology of delirium tremens is generally 
wholly misunderstood, and even to medical men it is un- 
known, or so doubtfully apparent that no authoritative 
explanation of it can be given ; it is certain, only, that it is 
one of the results of excess in the use of alcoholic stimu- 
lants ; but, it is also true that it is the result of certain 
physical ills wdth which alcohol has nothing to do, and 
therefore demands for its explanation the existence of some 
morbid cause other than alcoholic excess. May it not be 
true that my proposition of the germ of disease as exist- 
ent, and finding its exhibition in delirium tremens under 
the excitation of alcoholic stimulants, and called to the same 
exhibition by other causes, is the real explanation of this 
phase of physical ill so well known to physicians } 

That it is most frequently called forth by excess in the 
use of liquor is undeniable, but it is not always ; and may 
we not logically look behind the effect for the cause, and 
refuse to accept the mere exhibition of symptoms as the 
real entity, germ, origin, morbific cause ? 

Granted the existence of the morbific influence — the 
disease which I have call vini morbus — and a rational ex- 
planation is arrived at, and an easy understanding is attain- 
able of the facts shown by the sufferers from various diseases; 
this germ can be called into activity from its latent state by 
other provocatives than ardent spirits, but once aroused, it 
demands the use of them until this consequence delirium 
tremens ensues. But other causes will excite it and the 
same result supervene without the aid of alcoholic 
stimulants. 

Moreover, alcohol cannot be the cause, for delirium tre- 



33 

mens never occurs until the system refuses the alcoholic 
stimulant, or it is withdrawn suddenly from some unavoid- 
able necessity. In other words, delirium tremens is due to 
the development of a germ of disease that is usually latent 
in the system, which the use of alcohol will develop, as will 
other agencies. I am of the opinion that this morbific 
germ exists in every one born in the present age, and re- 
quires in different individuals different degrees of provo- 
cation to call it into full activity ; that the desire for 
alcoholic stimulants is one of its symptoms, and the most 
usual one ; that the use of liquors is the means of its de- 
velopment in each case. All have it, but, it will die, if 
nutrition be carefully and persistently denied it — or, to use 
a common expression men can " outgrow it." The last, 
most terrible scene in the drama of misfortune and misery 
enacted by the victims of vini morbus, is that of delirium 
tremens ; no known human suffering surpasses in intensity 
that of the patient ; for the instrument of the acutest 
agony, the nervous system and the seat of recognition of 
all sensations, pleasurable or otherwise — the brain — are 
directly, and to a great extent solely involved in the mis- 
chief, and concerned in the production of the horrors and 
pains which are characteristic of this exhibition of the 
disease. The height of nervous irritability, combined with 
a disordered, chaotic wreck of brain and will power, make 
the sufferer impressible to the gentlest breeze of heaven, 
to a degree which amounts to torture ; and the shattered, 
trembling, ruined intellect, recognizes each sensation that 
reaches it, through the tense, but uncontrollable nerves, 
as a premonition of evil or the herald of an actual attack 
of the direst troubles, to which it gives the shape of all 
that is repulsive and injurious to mortals. The wretched 
inebriate has drank until his outraged stomach refuses to 
retain any further dose of the poison ; or, perhaps, the 
compulsion of interfering friends has rendered it impossi- 
5 



34 

ble to have recourse to the stimulant which alone can stop 
the threatening physical and mental anarchy. Sleep is 
denied the patient or short and broken slumbers filled with; 
the phantasmagoria of insanity and every image of the 
most trying horror, implying bodily harm of the worst 
kind, add only to the strain on body and mind. Dreams, 
if such fearful imaginings can be called dreams, make the 
sleep he gets, through the effect of utter physical exhaust- 
ion, a lurid picture of a realized hell ; his waking hours are 
filled with appearances boding earthly destruction, all as 
real to his consciousness as if they had an actual, tangible 
existence ; whether dozing or awake, he lies in a tonure 
as real as has ever been any part of his life's experience. 
Mental power is gone from him so completely that he can- 
not persuade himself of the unrealities of the phantoms 
and shapes of horror that mock and gibe at him ; the 
assurances of others are powerless to bring him conviction 
of the actual realities about him, or to prove to him that 
his imps and devils, snakes, wild beasts and creeping in- 
sects, are the products of his disordered imagination. All 
self-control is lost ; no help can be given him by his shud- 
dering friends, and he must endure all the torments of the 
damned, until death, in one of his oft recurring paroxysms, 
or complete insanity, ends the scene. 

Recovery from the attacks of delirium tremens is very 
frequent where they have not recurred often ; but death, 
or insanity will be the result to any one who hazards many 
repetitions of them. Yet, such is the strength of this dis- 
ease — imii morbus — that all the complicated horrors of delir- 
ium tremens are insufficient to deter the victim of it from 
an indulgence which invites a return of all its unspeakable 
misery and woe. 

The spectacle of these sufferings has warned many a one 
who has yet retained sufficient strength of will, to abandon 
the use of alcoholic stimulants ; upon many another the 
warning has been wasted ; for they flattered themselves 



35 

that they never could be weak enough to sink to such A 
depth of misery and self-abandonment — and too many have 
waked at length, to the consciousness that they have fed 
in their fancied security, the monster — vini-morbiis — until 
its strength laughs at their powers of resistance, and mocks 
their vain, vacillating attempt to avoid the awful chain 
which it has thrown around them. 

Descriptions of mortal agony are not pleasant to read. 
One such of the effects of this disease, as evidenced in 
delirium tremens, will be sufficient for my purpose, for I 
do not propose that my readers shall " sup on horrors." 

" Utter loss of appetite was followed by the impossibility 
of retaining upon the stomach even the whiskey which I 
needed so much to strengthen my trembling nerves, and 
to remove the film from my eyes, and to relieve the depress- 
ion of spirits and the feeling of impending misfortune with 
which I was nearly distracted. The attempt to sleep at 
night was useless ; I could not ; wild fancies were flitting 
through my brain , I saw, as distinctly as I ever saw any- 
thing in my life, gibbering, scowling, mocking imps -all 
about me. Such intervals of semi-unconsciousness — 
it could not be called sleep — as I sank into, for a few 
moments at a time, were crowded with intensest agony. 
I felt as though swarms of insects were passing over my 
body in every direction, \ felt, I saw, I killed some of them ; 
but, fresh hordes supplied the place of those I destroyed 
and I was swimming in a sea of insect blood and crushed 
bodies. I smelt the foul odor of their carcasses; no suffer- 
ing or danger experienced in my sober moments was ever 
more real ; moments seemed ages of time, and I knew the 
meaning of " Eternal torment." Snakes wriggled and 
writhed over the. floor, bed and walls ; they hung from the 
ceiling, and hissed in my face with sibilant tongues and 
threatening fangs. At one time I knew and felt that an 
endless column of such insects as I never saw the like of 



36 

in the real world, began at the pit of my stomach and eat 
their way upward towards my heart, slowly, oh ! so slowly! 
and, with all the pain of this experience, I prayed that they 
might hasten to put an end to their infernal march, and my 
sufferings, by reaching some vital part. But, after what 
seemed ages of horror, a short cessation of pain would 
ensue, and then some new phase of danger and misery 
would take the place of the last ; and thus it went on 
through an endless shifting, changing, experience of never 
ceasing horrors." 

PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 

Not many years ago it was a popular belief — and the 
medical profession shared the delusion — that alcoholic 
liquors were heat producing ; and men about to be subject 
to uncommon exposure to cold swallowed the stimulant in 
order to keep up the bodily temperature. So firm was the 
belief, at one time, that the man who should have had the 
courage to assert that whiskey, or brandy, would in reality 
lower \}i\Q bodily temperature, would have been considered 
insane. 

The most intelligent of our medical men began to sus- 
pect that the warmth produced by the stimulant was only 
temporary, and that alcohol did not raise the temperature 
of the body for any length of time ; but the wonderful dis- 
covery that alcohol redttced the animal temperature was 
left for the Arctic Explorers, who learned this important 
fact from experience. Scientists have demonstrated by 
physiological observation and chemical experiment, con- 
clusively, as I think, that the Arctic observers were correct. 
However, there still exists a difference of opinion upon the 
point ; but few medical men hold to the old belief, and, I 
may say, that the opinions of the leading men of the coun- 
try are almost unanimous to the effect that the use of alco- 
holic drinks reduces the temperature of the body. 



37 

I assert, then, that in regard to its effects in furnishing 
fuel to the body, the first effects of alcohol are heating, as 
it acts as an irritant, is rapidly absorbed and increases the 
rapidity of the action of the heart ; but, it is oxidized to 
only a very small amount, and by its presence in the sys- 
tem prevents the combustion of those materials which 
otherwise would have furnished fuel for the production of 
animal heat. The general physiological effects of alcohol 
may be stated as follows : — 

Alcohol is not burned in the system, except to a very 
limited extent, therefore is not heat producing. 

It is rapidly absorbed, and as an irritant^ causes accelera- 
tion of the action of the heart, and the increased rapidity 
of the blood causes a temporary elevation of temperature 
of the body. 

Alcohol reduces the power of resisting severe cold. 

It reduces the power of resisting intense heat, and pre- 
disposes to sunstroke. 

It reduces the power of endurance where excessive mus^ 
cular action is required, especially if this be prolonged, and 
combined with exposure. 

It alcohol be taken in moderate doses, the brain is roused 
to greater activity ; but, a very important faculty — the 
reasoning power — is disturbed and weakened. The will 
remains intact, so that the drinker can do what he chooses, 
but, owing to the interruption of the faculty which should 
guide his actions, he often choses t6 do wrong. 

Alcohol in excessive doses, has the effect of suspending 
the reasoning faculty altogether ; and, in proportion to this 
suspension of the reasoning faculty, the individual is irre- 
sponsible for his acts. 

New ideas are never generated while the brain is under 
the influence of the stimulant ; but ideas are often brought 
to the surface which had previously lain dormant or latent 
in the mind, and the stimulated cerebrum is induced to 



as 

s/i^i^ihem. Brains soaked in alcohol are geilty of giving" 
to the world rhapsodies which, but for the interference of 
the stimulant, would have remained in the retirement of 
the cerebral chambers, to the everlasting benefit of the 
world and the greater credit of their authors. 

This increased automatic action of tbe brain exists no 
longer after a certain degree of intoxication is reached. 
When the effects of the stimulant have passed this point 
the nervous centres are rendered inactive, and the individ- 
ual becomes stupid through partial paralysis of the organs. 
I do not agree with most authors, that the depression 
following upon the use of s-timulants is in proportion to 
the excitement produced; the acceleration of the beats of 
the heart is only temporary, and when the poisonous effects 
of the alcohol taken into the system have been developed 
sufficiently, the pulsations are reduced, owing to nervous 
paralysis. 

The reason that alcohol does not raise the animal tem- 
perature, is, that it is almost non-combustible, and its pres- 
ence excludes and prevents the combustion of other sub- 
stances which, without it, would have furnished animal 
heat. 

Alcohol produces chemical changes in the blood which, 
cause the deposition of fat. 

It increases the secretion of the digestive fluid, (gastric 
juice) and when used to produce this result, (as an appe- 
tiser) it should be taken about fifteen minutes before eating, 
as it is quickly absorbed and its local effect is then lost 
The constant use of the stimulant before meals produces 
atrophy of the secreting glands, by forcing them to over- 
action. 

Alcohol gives tone to the nerves under certain conditions, 
as in insomnia (inability to sleep) especially is this true of 
habitual drinkers. 

There seems to be an antagonism between alcohol and 



39 

miasmatic diseases. This may be due to the development 
of vini morbus, and the conflict between the two diseases 
may perhaps cause the destruction of that arising from the 
malarial poison ; but the result is that the patient has 
chosen the worst affliction of the two. 

Alcoholic drinks retard the progress of consumption^, 
and doubtlessoprevent it ; but the constant and excessive 
use of alcoholic stimulants causes death in those who 
would have died, perhaps earlier, perhaps later, of consump- 
tion. 

The ill effects of the adulteration of alcoholic drinks, so 
much talked of, are, in the opinion of the author, often 
imaginary ; there are few things more injurious than pure 
alcohol. . ' 

Doses of alcohol which are not sufficiently large to pro- 
duce intoxication do not, as a rule, affect much the 
muscular system ; but there are exceptions to this rule. 
The power of muscular adjustment is sometimes lost when 
the intellectual faculties are apparently still clear. A few 
men get drunk in the legs first. The stomach suffers most 
from alcoholic drinks when there is no food present ; this 
is also true of the other organs, especially of the liver. 

The near contact and communication of the liver with 
the stomach renders it liable to disease from over-stimula* 
tion and congestion. The liver is a very delicate and very 
vascular organ, and, owing to the corrugating effects of 
alcohol upon all animal tissue, it is susceptible of degener- 
ation of its proper substance which is. changed to coitnective 
tissue, known to medical men as "cirrhosis," commonly 
called "whiskey liver", "gin liver", etc. The local effect of 
alcohol on the liver is irritative and corrugating, {hardening 
and drawing up) The effect of alcoholic stimulants upon 
the sexual organs are peculiar, Through the nervous sys- 
tem, the sexual desires are aroused, but from some action 
on the principal organs, the ability is rendered less- This 
may perhaps account for the fact that many persons be- 



40 

come infected with venereal disease while under the influ- 
ence of liquor, the attempt to satisfy the passions being 
prolonged and violent. 

As a necessary continuation of my remarks upon the 
general effects of the use of alcoholic drinks upon the 
human system, I think it best to make the following state- 
ment in reference to the remote effects ofetheir use; to 
speak of some of the principal diseases resulting from the 
habitual use of them. 

I wish to emphasize the statement that the habitual use 
of stimulants is invariably injurious, however small the quan- 
tity takejt may be. 

I believe that the constant drinker inflicts greater injury 
upon his organism than he who drinks to excess, occasion- 
ally, even to the extent of intoxication, for although the 
last may be "drunk," yet he will give his system time to 
rally from the effects of the liquor, as the poison is soon 
eliminated. But the constant drinker charges his system 
with a substance which serves no good purpose, not even 
that of keeping up the animal temperature, but rather the 
reverse. 

Alcohol predisposes to the development of many dis- 
eases, and renders the system peculiarly susceptible to 
their attacks ; moreover, the recovery from severe wounds 
is rendered much more slow and doubtful because of its 
previous use by the patient. No man can be said to be 
healthy who indulges in the constant use of alcoholic stim- 
ulants ; that is to say, aside from the disease — vini morbus 
— which led to their use, he is probably diseased in some 
of his important organs in consequence of this use of liquor. 

Alcohol, when taken into the stomach acts as an irritant, 
this irritating effect extends through the entire system, 
operating as a very active local irritant. It irritates the 
gastric glands and rouses them to an unusual activity 
which causes them to pour out an unnaturally large quanti- 
ty of the digestive fluid, and before long atrophy or wasting 



41 

away, ensues in them, from overwork. The use of these 
stimulants, for a long time, provokes gastritis, or acute in- 
flammation of the stomach, which is a very serious malady, 
and often causes death. The poison, however, is soon ab- 
sorbed and finds its way into the circulation, and there im- 
micdiately begins its destructive work, on internal organs 
other than the stomiach. The liver from its close contact 
and intimate association with the stomach, through the cir- 
culating medium, and from its. delicacy and vascularity 
receives the greatest injury from the poison, and as would 
naturally be supposed, the liver becomes congested, not only 
from the presence of the fluid which the blood vessels have 
taken up, but from the stimulating effects which the irri- 
tant has upon the heart, thereby increasing the rapidity of 
the heart's action and the amount of blood which must pass 
through the liver. 

The deleterious effects of this alcoholic agency exhibit 
themselves in, and impress themselves upon, all the won- 
derful variety of the different organs, but no one receives a 
greater permane7it injury than the liver, it becomes con- 
gested ; the fulness of the blood vessels causes compression, 
and this compression obliterates the smaller blood vessels 
of this organ, whose perfect fulfilment of its functions is 
absolutely necessary to any degree of health. The normal 
tissue of the liver is changed into a different substance ; 
this organ can not discharge its functions properly, in con- 
sequence of this change. 

The use of alcohol predisposes to many liver affections, 
but the condition known as " whiskey liver," " gin liver etc." 
is the most common one. The constant moderate drinker 
usually falls a victim to this disease which is very insidious 
in its attacks — steals upon the patient unawares, and 
slowly but surely saps his vitality. This congestion of the 
liver extends its influence everywhere, but those organs 
suffer most whose blood must pass through the liver, on 
its return to the heart. 
6 



42 

There is one infirmity to which I desire to call special 
attention, which I beheve to be often the result of the use 
of alcoholic stimulants ; the more so do I wish to speak of 
it as this too prevalent cause is not mentioned by medical 
writers. This disease is hemorrhoids, or piles ; the term 
" whiskey piles " would be as appropriate a term in this in- 
stance as is " whiskey liver " in the disease of that organ 
arising from the same cause. That a majority of the cases 
of piles, so prevalent among officers of the army, result 
from the use of whiskey, I have no doubt, and any one who 
takes the trouble to observe the facts must agree with this 
opinion. This is especially true of the cavalry arm of the 
service; the reason is sufficiently obvious. 

Space will not allow of farther detail, and I therefore 
mention but a few more of the principal diseases arising 
from the use of alcoholic drinks. 

Bright's disease of the kidneys is often brought on by a 
debauch. 

Affections of the brain, as inflammations, etc., are caused 
by it ; so is insolation, or sunstroke. 

An abnormal deposition of fat, and the fatty degenera- 
tion of important organs is brought about by it. 

Gout and rheumatism are caused by it, as well as disease 
of the heart and arteries. 

Its effects upon the moral tone of mankind are well known 
and this is probably due to its irritating effects upon the 
nervous system and to the continual disturbance of the 
reasoning powers caused by it. 

Before leaving this subject I wish to do away with the 
popular delusion that alcohol is heat producing. 

Heat is produced by the oxidation, or combustion of the 
material supplied by the food, both liquids and solids. 
Alcohol when introduced into the system is combustible 
only to a very limited extent, if it underwent oxidation so 
readily, or to * as great an extent, as some distinguished 
authors have stated, the delicate tissue of lungs, and other 



43 

organs in which this oxidation takes place, would inevita- 
bly be in danger of sudden destruction in the act of respir- 
ation ; and we would have cases of real *' spontaneous 
combustion " of daily occurrence. 

The conclusions which I am compelled to arrive at by a 
most careful scrutiny of the nature, causes and effects of 
vini morbus are antagonistic in a great measure to those 
which have been announced and argued from by others ; 
and they are entirely subversive of former theories and - 
would lead to the adoption of practical measures entirely 
different from those which have been tried, from time to 
time, for the suppression of inebriety. 

The much vaunted prohibitory laws it is useless to think 
of attempting to enforce. They are, in their very nature, 
inconsistent with the American idea of full, social and 
moral freedom, to say nothing of their irrecohcilibility with 
the popular idea of the limit set to legislative power by the 
spirit of our institutions. The attempt to enforce them 
gives rise to an obstinate rebellion upon the part of a large 
portion of our body politic ; and where they have actually 
been tried they have proved, more or less, practical failures, 
and provoked every form of evasion, culminating in unhes- 
itating perjury in order to avoid the consequences of their 
violation. Such attempts have had a tendency to lower 
the regard for law so conspicuously prominent in the Amer- 
ican people, and shaken their faith in all law, as well as in- 
augurated the deplorable habit of evading by any possible 
means the operation of any law that may interfere with the 
utmost freedom of classes, or individuals. 

Massachusetts, after a trial of the prohibitory law — ■ 
styled " the Maine law " from the state in which it first 
went into effect — has deliberately gone back to the license 
system ; preferring the ills of the license law to those worse 
ones which sprang up immediately upon the attempt to put 
in force the prohibitory statute of her sister state. Massa- 
chusetts is not apt to be slow in adopting any real engine of 



44 

progress, or inducement for a higher morality ; but she has • 
expunged the prohibitory clause from her code, and has 
done it after a patient trial of its merits ; her verdict is of 
great weight, in this country at least. 

The high tax upon liquors should be abated, for it is 
really paid by the wretched victims of the disease — vini 
morbus. These infatuated who have no restraining power 
of will left to them, pay, in the increased price of each 
drink, the enormous tax which the General Government 
exacts from the manufacturer ; the diseased, the miserable, 
the poverty stricken, are compelled to contribute from their 
already insufficient means an immense revenue to the gov- 
ernment. This revenue, in a great measure, is extorted 
from those who are breadless ; it is paid at the cost of in- 
creased want, destitution and misery. Suppose that gov- 
ernment were -to cheapen the price of liquors, and to see to 
it that the liquors were pure, and not half, or more than half 
alcohol. Then part of the ill-effect of drinking them would 
be. cured, and the oversight of the Government much more 
paternal in its results. 

The high price demanded for licenses is also a mistaken 
economy on the part cf our legislative rulers ; the victims 
of the disease must also pay that. The money to pay for 
the license of the saloon keeper comes mainly out of the 
pockets of the wretchedly poor. It^ is appropriated to the 
support of the common schools ; is used to educate the 
children of the neighbors of the man who pays it ; yet his 
own children can not have the advantage of it, for they 
have not the clothes for the requirements of decency, or 
the money to pay for text books, and, above all, are scorned, 
despised and hooted at as the " brats of a drunkard." They 
can not attend the schools which their parents' drunkenness 
helps to support. Is this the height of legislative wisdom, 
or social economy t is it not a practical fulfilment of the 
biblical utterance — " and from him who hath not shall be 
taken away even that which he hathi*" 



45 

The saloon keeper who is compelled to pay the high ex- 
cise tax, and also a large license tax, must have capital ; 
the manufacturer, for the same reason must have capital, 
and each must have a very large interest upon that capital, 
because of the expense to which they are put to resist the 
vain attempts of " reformers " to abolish the traffic. And 
in their case is the precedent clause of the same Bible ut- 
terance fulfilled '' to him who hath more shall be given ;" 
and it is given to the tune of many hundred per cent., at 
the cost of those who suffer untold misery and endure in- 
describable want as the results of disease, which the phil- 
anthropist will insist on looking upon as deliberate siii. No 
community can afford to illustrate the truths of the Bible 
in this way. Poor economists, and mistaken makers of law 
are they whose labors result in such illustrations of the 
Good Book ! 

The high price of liquor does not prevent or lessen its 
use ; for, cost what it may, the sufferers from vi7ti morbus 
will have the stimulants their disease craves ; and this is 
true not only of the " common drunkard " but of the "mod- 
erate drinker." Cut the last class off from their regular 
drams and you have stirred up a commotion of which the 
first class are incapable, and which will only abate with the 
ceasing of the denial of the " eleven o'clocks" and " four 
o'clocks." 

And what, then, is the remedy for all this waste of wis- 
dom on the part of the framers of the law — of this waste 
of costly exertion on the part of those who have man's 
best interests at heart — of all this waste of possible health,, 
happiness, prosperity and money? 

I answer thus ; — 

Impress upon all people the fundamental trouble ; let 
them understand that inebriety is a disease ; and let them 
treat it as such, in themselves and in others. 

Let those who are seriously affected be treated for their 
malady as they would be if they were afflicted with other 



46 

disease ; do away with the gilded delusions of the saloon bar 
— delusions supported by capital — by taking such measures 
as will discourage investment in such a way. Build asy- 
lums for the hopelessly affected in lieu of houses of reform- 
ation, jails and prisons — asylums where those who can be 
cured may find the proper treatment, and be restored to 
usefulness when cured — then more will have been done for 
the eradication of vi7ii morbus, than ever before. 

Temperance organizations have accomplished as yet, but 
little permanent good in this direction ; these organizations 
in their respective localities are apt to be short lived, and 
very few complete reformations are ever affected by them. 

Let the drunkard be withdrawn from the possibility of 
obtaining the poison, by being sentenced to an asylum not 
to a jail ; fine every saloon keeper who sells liquor to any 
one in quantities sufficient to intoxicate ; let the fact of 
drunkenness in any saloon be sufficient for conviction ; let 
the fines for this offence go to the support of the family of 
the drunkard and let him be taught to employ himself in 
remunerative work during his seclusion in the asylum. 

If he is never to be trusted again with the fate of him- 
self and family, let half of his earnings be devoted to the 
support of the asylum which shelters him, and the other 
half to the use of his family. Make the business of sell- 
ing liquor profitable only to the extent of any other : let 
politicians cease to pander to the interests of saloon keep- 
ers and the liquor traffic in general for the sake of votes. 

Above all let temperance lodges warn individuals against 
drunkenness as a disease to which all humanity is subject, 
and not fulminate against it as a sin of which none need 
be guilty. Let temperance lecturers cease to try to cure a 
physical infirmity by prescribing cures suited only to the 
repression of moral delinquences. 

Make the liquor business less profitaj^le by reducing the 
tax upon liquors, and consequently lowering the price ; let 
there be established a system of inspection which shall 



47 

guarantee something like a pure article to the consumer; 
let those who mast drink, drink the pure juice of the grape 
and cereals, potatoes, etc Why shoould not the people be 
protected against fraud and knavery in this matter of daily 
consumption, as well as in any other ? 

Let the fines for violation of the liquor laws return to 
those from whom they were stolen by the diseased, and 
irresponsible parent ; 

Let the law protect and care for the unfortunate sufferer 
from vini morbus, not punish him for a disease, at the cost 
of those upon whom the consequences fall most heavily — 
his family. 

Let the saloon keeper's license tax go to support the 
family of him who supports the saloon and enriches its 
owner. 

Let the public schools be supported by money to which 
no taint of such crying injustice clings, as that which exists 
under present provisions. 

Let the law honestly confess the truth, and put the bur- 
den of the trouble where it righteously belongs. It may 
be objected that I am crying down a perfectly legitimate 
and justifiable business ; that I am placing the responsi- 
bility for drunkenness upon the wrong party — the seller — 
and not upon him on whom it ought to rest — the drinker. 
Admit the truth that drunkenness or vini morbus is a dis- 
ease, and the only person who canbe responsible is he who 
furnishes food for it, not he who is its victim and deprived 
of judgment and self-control by its influence. 

And, if any one is led to deny the force of my answer 
in this regard, let him read the confession of a liquor seller, 
which follows, and then ask that any defence of such an 
occupation be listened to, on any ground whatever, if he 
can ; let the liquor seller close his bar and earn his living, 
as the rest of the world are compelled to do, honestly, and 
by giving a fair return of faithfully performed labor, and 
not claim the right to loaf away his existence in the too 



48 

easy occupation of helping his neighbor to the glass of 
spirits for which that neighbor barters his manhood and 
the health and comfort of himself and family. Let the 
reader remember that the liquor seller passes a bottle and 
glass across the bar, and, in a few moments, pockets the 
proceeds of half a day's work of some laboring man who 
lives in a hovel next door to the seller's comfortable man- 
sion, built from the rapidly accumulated profits of the liq- 
uor seller's wofk\ and such work! but listen to the con- 
fession of one of this fraternity which protests so energet- 
ically against being called upon to bear their part of the 
curse that followed the sin of Adam "by the sweat of thy 
brow shalt thou earn thy bread." 

A LIQUOR seller's CONFESSION. 

*' For obvious reasons, sir, I shall withhold all real names ; 
for if I see fit to acknowledge my own part in " ways that 
are dark and tricks that are vain/' I have no right to in- 
volve others in my disclosures. 

I entered the house of in a confidential capacity 

to one of the partners who was a relative ; before long I 
was entrusted with all the secrets of their business, and 
expected to superintend personally those matters which 
were carefully kept from the knowledge of their customers. 
I received an analysis of the various brands which had 
acquired reputation and commanded a quick and large sale. 
I saw to it that the half of the real liquor, as sent to us, 
was drawn from one cask and put into another which was 
ready to receive it, and both filled with diluted alcohol, 
fixed up by our " Doctor," who was paid a handsome sal- 
ary by the firm for his services. Various drugs and oils 
were used by him for this purpose ; a minute detail of the 
names and properties of these drugs is not essential to 
your enquiry. By this operation the firm doubled the 
quantity of these high priced liquors, and, of course, swin- 



49 

died their customers to this extent. I do not think that 
any deleterious or poisonous mixtures were used by the 
" Doctor "for his ends. Some o)ie cask of the Simon pure 
article was always kept to satisfy those whose judgment of 
liquors was not to be deceived ; but this number was very 
small. A very large part of the liquor sold by them as 
" imported " and of high cost, was manufactured in their 
own cellars. It may not be known to you that it is possi- 
ble to obtain the bottles, packages and labels of any foreign 
wine, known to the trade in this country, in New York ; 
and you can obtain them in any quantity ; they are fac- 
similes, exact imitations of those in use by the foreign 
manufacturer. The necessity for this will be evident when 
you reflect that more champagne is drunk in London, or 
New York, in any one year, than is made in the cham- 
pagne regions of France ; as to the propriety of the de- 
ception, or its morality, people may differ. This is true of 
all famous foreign wines, and the ease with which people 
at large are duped by the spurious article, leads liquor deal- 
ers to rely on their '' doctors " for any brand foreign or 
"domestic," that their customers may call for. The ''doc- 
tor"is never at fault; he will produce for them, Burgundies, 
Hocks, Champagne, French brandies, and any other descrip- 
tion of liquor, at short notice, and small cost. This method 
of supplying the need of their trade yields them an immense 
profit of course ; given alcohol, cider, rum, and a host of 
drugs and oils, and the establishment that has in pay an 
accomplished " doctor" will never be out of any article of 
the sort that may be called for. 

The world at large must not obtain money on false 
pretences, at the risk of the penitentiary ; but, somehow 
the liquor trade is exempt from the operation of that stat- 
ute ; the dealer asks, and is paid, a high price for such 
liquors, and he, tacitly, at least, says that they are genuine, 
and carries out his assertions by the use of imitations of the 
genuine labels, vessels, etc. Yet he knows that they were 
7 



so 

manufactured on his ov\'n premises, or those of some one 
else ; but I never heard any one of the "trade" admit the 
truth concerning them to any customer. 

I lied hourly, directly or indirectly, while in their employ 
but the countenance and example of others led me to think 
little of the true character of the transactions in which I 
was engaged ; I had to earn my means of support, and 
wanted to accumulate capital for my own use ; and I could 
do so here. 

The expenditure of money indirectly by the firm was 
very great ; newspapers had to be kept in good humor, 
and prevented from attacking the business in their capacity 
of ouardians of the morals and best interests of the com- 
munities ; all subscription lists had to be signed, as a sort 
of expiatory sacrifice of part of the prohts to secure the 
countenance of the charitable ; all social amusements it 
was needful to help along with money, for the purpose of 
building up a favorable opinion of the generosity and public 
spirit of the firm, as an offset to the harm which it was 
too well known the trade did in the community. The 
legitimate profits of a good busmess were expended in 
various ways of this sort, as a sop to the cerberus of public 
opinion, and yet a very large profit was left for the private 
purses of the members of the firm. 

After some years I was able to command the capital 
needed to open a bar of my own. Gilding, paint and var- 
nish, and pictures of large size and doubtful character, 
made an attractive place of resort for the " Jeunesse doree," 
— the wealthy youth — of the place ; the doors were always 
open, of course, to ail comers, and all sorts of people spent 
their money at the bar ; but, the establishment was spec- 
ially designed for the patronage of the better class of 
drinkers. 

I now saw more of the evils of the traffic than when I 
was in the wholesale trade. There was not a pure speci- 
men of liquor in my whole stock ; there was not a single 



51 

bottle or package, whose contents were what the label pre- 
tended them to be ; all was fraud to begin with. Many and 
great are the temptations of the retailer to cheat. Imagine 
a group of wealthy careless youngsters, more or less under 
the influence of liquor, laughing and smoking, each order- 
ing drinks of various kinds, and paying no particular atten- 
tion to their number, and sometimes for hours together ; 
generally the bill was paid by simply asking the amount of 
the bar-keeper, and the number of drinks as announced by 
him was rarely disputed. Too often some of the young 
men were so intoxicated that the}^ were unable to tell, and 
utterly indifferent, for the time, to the matter of expense. 

I, like every other retailer, kept various qualities of 
liquors, — that is, some were coarse and strong and cheap, 
because they were little else than alcohol thinly disguised, 
others were whiskey and so-forth, more or less diluted with 
alcohol. But, to the poorer class of customers, the fiery 
liquor was sold at the same price as the better to the 
wealthier ; the deluded drinkers thought that they paid for 
the pleasure of drinking in a first-class saloon, first-class 
liquors, but, our fraud cheated them of even this miserable 
ambition. 

Young clerks were drinking daily at my bar who I knew 
could not afford it ; others who could afford it, in one sense 
of the word, were destroying their physical health and 
contracting evil habits w^hich would prove their ruin, and I 
knew it ; but, I must make money, and I did, and a great 
deal too, in a very short time, without labor of any sort 
Many are the glimpses of the misery my business was 
working which I caught sight of, through what transpired 
in the saloon. More than once, women have followed their 
husbands to my place, with the evident hope of prevent- 
ing the expenditure of money for rum, which was needed 
for their families. Manyot them were as coarse and fierce 
spoken as the men of whom they were in pursuit. The place 
has often echoed again to mutual recriminations, oaths, and 



52 

curses ; women who might once have been fair to look 
upon, gentle and lovable, but made gaunt, dishevelled and 
repulsive in appearance, and reckless in manner and lan- 
guage, by the trials, sorrows and want which the habits of 
the men brought upon them, would endeavor to induce 
their husbands to cease drinking and return home with 
them ; and, finding entreaty fail, would rise to reproach 
and threats until the conversation would culminate in- 
curses and evil language. The bar-keeper would then in- 
terfere, eject the unfortunate wife, and furnish fresh drinks 
to the sullen husband. 

I recall a scene, the very remembrance of which even 
now troubles me ; which affected me much when it occurred 
and perhaps was the cause of the serious reflection which 
finally led me to give up the business. 

A young Irish carpenter often drank at the bar, but did 
not often, with us, at least, get any the worse for the liquor 
he bought, although he sometimes would be excited, and 
after the fashion of his countrymen, grow witty, boisterous 
and obtrusive. At such times, the bar keeper would check 
his familiarity towards the more aristocratic tipplers, who 
did not relish his freedom and fun, and he would be smug- 
gled out by some of the many loafers who had almost at- 
tained the position of attache's of the establishment, 
through their regular frequenting of the saloon ; where 
they were always ready to drink " for the good of the house' 
in response to the not infrequent invitation to everybody 
to "step up and take something" given by half-intoxicated 
customers who had forgotten their caution in the more 
generous moments of their conviviality. These "bum- 
mers" we tolerated, and sometimes actually fed with occa- 
sional free drinks, in consideration of the additional profit 
which their presence brought to the money drawer ; 
although Ve were rather ashamed of them and certainly 
were unwilling to confess that they were, after a fashion, 
our jackals. 

This carpenter had, for a day or two, been in the saloon 



• 53 

much more often than usual, and had drunk more than he 
was wont to do. This evening, toward dusk of a stormy- 
winter's day, most of which he had spent with us, the 
swinging ioors were pushed timidly open and a slight, 
small framed, young woman, stood there as they closed be- 
hind her, and glanced nervously and hurriedly around the 
room. Her eyes fell upon the Irishman who was sitting 
near the stove,., entertaining a knot of loafers with some 
characteristic stories. She was neatly dressed, and very 
childlike in appearance. 

She had an innocent kind of beauty which made her face 
very attractive, with its blue eyes and the golden hair 
falling about it, and she rapidly crossed the floor and put her 
hand upon the arm of the young man 

" Phil, dear Phil, come home — the babies are waiting to 
say good night, and I cannot eat without ye " she said. 
'' Oh, begorra, kiss the brats for me, Katy, an' I'll be home 
afther a while ; I cant disappoint these gintlemen in the 
nate little story I was telling 'em ; but, this is no place for 
the likes o'yes — the swatest, purtiest little wife in Ameriky 
—go home, darlint, an' I'll come soon." The little wife 
persisted in her requesr, and, evidently startled by the fixed 
stare of the bystanders and annoyed by the scarcely re- 
pressed amusement of some of them, she changed entreaty 
to a sort of hurried, gasping prayer, broken by what was 
almost a sob: — " by your love for me, by your love for the 
children, Phil, listen to me." " Bedad, but ye must listen 
to me'' — replied the husband, who could not help noticing 
the expression upon the countenances of those around him, 
— "tuck the young ones into their bed, an' ate yer supper; 
— Phil will be with ye all, before long ; but ye must not 
stay here." 

'' Oh, Phil, but remember — 

*'By the holy poker! I'll come whin I git ready — now 
go, and sthop yer interfering wid me!" rie shook her 
hand from his arm, and motioned her toward the door — "Go 



54 

home." The wife, with eyes full of tears and a wail of 
half-terror, half-reproach, turned to go. The bar-keeper 
stood outside the bar, at one end, brightening some silver 
faucets of the beer fountain, and as she passed towards the 
door, the frightened, troubled, young woman stopped near 
him and began to beg him, as it afterwards turned out, to 
give her husband no more to drink, that he might be in- 
duced to go home the sooner. Her hand.%were nervously 
workinp-, one over the other, and in her eagerness, she 
bent forward, and her face was brought near that of the 
bar-keeper, who replied to her in a low tone. A coarse 
laugh broke from one of those around the stove and the 
Irishman turned, and glancing toward the bar saw what 
was going on ; prompted by a sudden fit of jealousy and 
drunken fury he seized the short iron wrench from the 
stove and flung it in the direction of the bar-keeper. The 
missile hurtled through the air and struck the poor wife 
upon the temple — " Oh, Phil !" she cried, as she flung her 
round arms upward and sank to the floor. 

In a moment, the carpenter was at the bar, raving at and 
denouncing the bar-keeper in the fiercest language and 
threatening him with the most violent gestures ; until, 
looking down at his wife, he sank to his knees beside her 
and poured out a torrent of affectionate entreaty and wild 
self-reproach. An instant after, he was again on his feet, 
cursing himself, rum, and those who sold it, showering the 
wildest imprecations upon the establishment and all con- 
nected with it. He then sprang suddenly over the prostrate 
form of his wife, and, seizing the bar-keeper by the throat, 
shook him as an enraged mastiff would some cur, and 
finally flung him to the floor, ten feet away All was con- 
fusion and noise; the bar-keeper picked himself up and, 
blind with pain and rage, attacked the Irishman who cursed 
and fought until the police interfered and carried him away 
to the lockup, and took charge of , the insensible form of 
the nearly murdered woman. I sought out the home of 



55 

these two unfortunates and did what I could to remedy 
the mischief ; but I could only palliate what I could not 
cure. 

Such was one of the many instances of which I could 
not resist the practical logic, and I gave up the business 
after a while. But this was not the only consideration 
which induced me to do so ; there were others and some of 
them were these — I would not sell liquor behind my own 
bar, but paid a high salary to some one else to do it, I was 
ashamed to do it ; I felt that my business was in a measure, 
at least, disgraceful and degrading and I concluded to give 
up such an occupation of whose details I was ashamed. 

I knew all the time that I was deceiving my patrons and 
that I gave no fair consideration for the money I received, 
and that the article was not what I represented it to be ; 
in fact I labored hard to see the distinction between it and 
swindling, but failed, and gave it up. 

I knew that my money was taken in a great part from 
the miserably poor ; that women and children suffered for 
the want of it. 

Liquor will always be drank ; there is a great deal of 
money to be made in selling it, and that money is gained 
without much personal labor and very rapidly ; but I do 
not care to resumic the business. 

Such a confession, and those who know the business 
best, best know how substantially accurate it is, ought to 
compel earnest thought, and to ensure the honest recogni- 
tion of the wrong. 

It would hardly be modest to assume that the problem 
which the facts of vhii morbus and its consequences and 
incidents present, can be thoroughly solved, in the wisest 
way, by me or any other one ; but, as the experiments of 
the past have substantially failed, there would seem to be 
some hitherto unrecognized cause for these failures ; a dis- 
tinct recognition and avoidance of which, might make suc- 
cess possible with measures adopted under the admission 



56 

of what I feel to be the real truth. That inebriety is a 
disease, and to be combated as such, if combated at alb 

Prohibition of the traffic in liquors, through the enact- 
ment of laws shaped to that end, has been the favorite pan- 
acea of the philanthropist for the cure of the disease ; but 
from the nature of our institutions, and from the constitu- 
tion of man, such a remedy has been and must be a failure. 
Even more, it has been, and must be, a provocation to de- 
liberate sin of a character as prejudicia] to the common 
weal as drunkenness itself, to which the palliation of not 
being deliberate in most cases, can be urged, 

The universal sense of personal responsibility and perfect 
freedom of individual belief and action in this country, 
make the passage of such laws an offence to " the inalien- 
able right of self government" in the people. Such laws 
instantly call into being a blind, and somewhat unreasoning- 
spirit of resistance ; and where direct and positive resist- 
ance is impossible, resort is had to every means of evasion. 
Every expedient to defeat them is thought to be allowable 
and the sacredness of any and every law is brought into 
instant and imminent peril. 

The people wdll not brook interference with what they 
consider the right of private judgment, and the right to de- 
cide personal action, in such matters; they resist the attempt 
to manufacture a public conscience, save in matters of 
purely public policy ; they will not submit to the indignity 
of an universal rule of restraint — a law-appointed virtue — 
in matters which admit of individual difference of convic- 
tion and concern private personal self-control. They will 
not be compelled to a morality, which to some of them, is a 
myth, and which all of them claim the right to define and 
enforce for themselves. Because some are weak, they will 
not submit to a legal judgment of univ^ersal imbecility, and 
to the operation of qnasi sumptuary laws based upon that 
judgment. In this nineteenth century, and in this country, 
men will not consent to be robbed of their right to cultivate 



57 

private , virtues through personal effort and self-control. 

Legal interference with the use of liquors would seem 
impossible and impolitic ; legal notice of the abuse of it, 
and of the consequences of that abuse, is necessary ; but 
that notice should be as wise as human wisdom and human 
knowledge of the causes and nature of drunkenness can 
make it. 

.: To treat drunkenness as an avoidable crime in all cases, 
is a great mistake ; all laws, now existing on the subject do 
so treat it ; vindictive punishment in the shape of fines and 
imprisonment is the legal mode of meeting it. Those fines 
are devoted to the purposes of education, in most States ; as 
a rule, this appropriation of the revenue arising from this 
source expends it in a direction as far removed as possible 
from meeting the claims of the misery and want which 
always accompany drunkenness, and which ought, as far as 
possible to be relieved from the public income extorted 
from drunkards, by public justice. For the children of 
drunkards are those who reap the least advantage from the 
provisions for free education, as poverty, and the need of 
finding the means of support, excludes them from the pos- 
sibility of attending school. 

Are temperance reformers and temperance leagues then 
all wrong ? Yes ! 

Are the laws in reference to drunkenness ill-advised and 
mistaken ? Yes ! 

These questions which must have arisen in the minds of 
my readers, I answer thus frankly and give these as my 
reasons — 
, All law requires as the excuse for its existence, that there 
should be a state of facts calling for the control it assumes, 
and that control should be calculated to effect a public 
good and be based upon a thorough knowledge of the na- 
ture of the matters to be controlled ; any of these pre- 
requisites being wanting, law must either be wholly inopera- 
8 



58 

tive for want of material for its operation, or be a public 
nuisance and a grievous wrong. 

The fatal mistake of all liquor laws of the present or past, 
is, that they do not recognize the true nature of the matters 
they are framed to control and correct, and therefore they 
are a public nuisance and a grievous wrong. 

They do not treat drunkenness as a disease, but as a 
crime, and therein fail of one of the pre-requisites, — which 
makes them a nuisance. They work bitter wrong to a class 
whom the judgment of Heaven has referred to man's pity 
not to man's vengeance, and they are therein a grievance. 

It is self-evident that attempts to prevent or to cure 
drunkenness, up to this time, have been failures ; the most 
earnest and persistent efforts have been made by those who 
have had man's best interests at heart to do both ; eloquence 
has been exhausted in vain ; statistics of terrible import 
have been collected and published in vain ; man's regard 
for a solemn promise has been appealed to with only tem- 
porary success ; the terrors of the law have been brought 
into requisition — ^yet all has been useless to effect any radi- 
cal change in men's habits, or 'to ameliorate, to. any great 
extent, the consequences of intoxication and the failure of 
the means employed has begotten a very general impression 
that the task is hopeless, for reformer, legislator, or social 
philanthropist. And certain great positive ills have fol- 
lowed from the employment of these agencies based upon 
the criminal aspect of the trouble. 

It will be, I think, theoretically, at least — ^for as yet the 
proposed method of treatment has not been subjected to 
the practical test of experience — equally self-evident, to 
every thinking mind, that, if drunkenness be accepted as a 
disease and treated as such, success to man's highest hopes 
for man is possible in this regard. 

Statistics show, as is so frequently urged upon our notice 
in all temperance arguments, that our jails, penitentiaries 
and houses of correction are filled by those who were 



59 

brought there by drunkenness ; that a great part of the 
expense of the administration of justice is rendered neces- 
sary by the same cause. This is probably true, to a great 
extent, and the fines paid by those already made miserably 
poor by drunkenness do not, under present arrangements, 
benefit the impoverished families of the victims to this 
disease. 

Suppose that the state build asylums for the drunkard ; 
that the victim of drunkenness be sentenced, not to jail, but 
to this asylum — that, the patient be treated as in our insane 
asylums, as a diseased person — the treatment of course,being 
different in kind as the cases differ — that the inmates of 
the asylum be employed at such work as they can best per- 
form — that the patient who is cured be returned to society, 
and allowed once more the liberty of caring for himself and 
family, with the understanding that the law will resume 
control of him, if he loses control of himself again. 

Suppose that the half of the earnings of the inebriate go 
to the support of the asylum, if so large a percentage be 
needful, and that the other moiety be devoted to the needs 
of his family from whom it has been necessary to separate 
their natural head and bread-winner. Suppose that the 
income from licenses for the sale of liquors be devoted to 
the purpose of a fund to support those bereaved families. 

Suppose that the fines be wholly done away with, and as 
a consequence of this method of treatment, the jails, peni- 
tentiaries and houses of correction be nearly emptied of 
inmates, as must be the case, if the temperance statistics 
referred to before are true, and here is, at once, a direct 
and enormous saving of expense. The school fund will 
suffer perhaps, but the community will be saved from an 
expenditure that is only a measure of public disgrace and 
individual degradation; and then the community can well 
afford to apply the sum so saved to the educational inter- 
ests of the state. Moreover, this school money will not 
have been snatched from the famishing wives and children ; 



6o 

and the practical injustice which, up to this time,* has worn 
the thin disguise of a tax on incurable immorality for the 
furtherance of enlightenment and virtue, will be avoided. 
The wages of sin will no longer be the support of our sys- 
tem of free schools, and education will owe no further debt 
to vice, as it is now unjustly termed, disease, as it really is. 
All parties concerned in this miserable business will be 
immediately and immensely benefited by this change in 
the treatment of drunkenness. The cause of public virtue 
and private happiness will be greatly subserved, and " man's 
inhumanity to man" will, to some extent, at least, be a 
thing of the pas t. Noble ends will no longer be gained 
through ignoble means; the conclusions of truth, right- 
eously acted upon, will restore to the law her proud boast 
of being charitable and wise, and thousands of wives and 
children, rescued from want and misery, will bless the 
source of their renewed happiness, and respectability. The 
only course of treatment which ever has resulted in a cure 
of the disease will be applied in the asylum by removal of 
the possibility of indulging its cravings and the patient will 
be restored to his lost manhood, and his powers of resist- 
ance to the attacks of the disease. If it should return upon 
him, if self-control is impossible to him, a refuge is always 
open to him in the asylum, and his retreat thither saves 
his family a sure resource for support, which was in great 
hazard while he was in the world and tempted every hour. 
Men will deliberately incur the censure of the world for 
such a sin as that of drunkennesss, but they will not 
patiently endure the supposition that they are diseased; 
such is human nature; and this fact will give to the law a 
larger restraining influence than its present terrors can. 
At present, the drunkard's deprivation of liberty is but 
temporary. Under the asylum system it must be long con- 
tinued, and it may be for life ; its duration is dependent 
entirely upon his exertion of self-control, and, consequently, 
gives him the highest incentive to its exercise, and lends 



6i 

to the community the best guarantee possible for his con- 
tinued and habitual sobriety. It gains the ends of the 
temperance leagues, and answers the prayers of the phil- 
anthropist. 

Let the present liquor laws be so changed as to meet this 
requirement — of drunkenness to be treated as a disease, 
and one of the problems of modern social life will be solved, 
at least, partially. 






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